Look very carefully at the way the 265 is installed now. They made a front cradle or transverse bracket for the inline six cylinder that mounted the same way. Find or fabricate a duplicate to the one for the six.
Take a pattern of the bolt pattern from the bell housing of your stick shift from the car.
Transfer the bolt pattern that attaches the bell housing to the back of the engine onto a sheet of 1/8" steel or 1/4" aluminum and drill those holes INCLUDING THE DOWEL PIN HOLES through your plate. The plate should be wide enough to duplicate the bell housing and the brackets that attach it to the frame of the car. OR!! You can buy a mid plate from several different chassis builders.
You need this mid-plate because the aluminum case that contains your 700R4 isn't strong enough to support the back of the six cylinder engine without it if you mount the six like the V8 is mounted in the front!
The final part is the transmission crossmember! You should do this piece LAST because you need to have the exhaust run so you can build around it too. These cars had NO transmission crossmember for the reason I explained in my earlier post. Depending on how experienced you are in fabrication, this can be an intricate piece or very simple and plain. On my 4banger project I went simple. It runs an open header and the car is very light, so it only needed to be a heavy wall piece of 1" tubing and three small sections of 2 1/2" angle. You're only seeking to prevent the transmission case from flexing too much and cracking in critical places.
It's really only five attachment points and if you have the front cradle mount and a store bought mid-plate, you can probably accomplish the whole installation in a weekend. I have knocked this same installation out in a long day using an engine hoist, a bunch of good jack stands, and hand tools. I welded the mounting tabs on the mid-plate and notched the bolt holes for the biscuit mounts. You can eliminate the welder if you bolt on those mounting tabs. Takes a little longer though.
This set-up duplicates the system used on the best race cars in the world and you use factory style engine and transmission isolation mounts.
EDIT: This set-up also allows you to avoid steering linkage, exhaust, and probably cooling system interference problems!!
Last edited by Blackwater; 12/24/17 10:45 PM.
